Feature

Interview: Kieran Ho on purpose-driven and values-led fashion

by Telum Media

6 May 2026 2:32 AM

8 mins read

Each year, the Met Gala captures global attention through celebrity fashion and viral red-carpet moments. Yet for comms professionals, the event represents far more than a showcase of style. It has become a live demonstration of how brands communicate purpose, cultural relevance, and values under intense public scrutiny.

With the 2026 Met Gala currently underway, Telum Media spoke with Kieran Ho, Senior Vice President of PURPLE in Hong Kong, as he shares his APAC-rooted insights on how purpose-driven and values-led fashion is redefining fashion communications at cultural events. He touches upon topics such as transparency as a core pillar of luxury fashion and how high-end brands can still remain culturally-grounded and inclusive.

For PR and communications professionals, what makes fashion and events such as the Met Gala such a powerful platform for brands to communicate its purpose, identity, and values?
In the fashion and lifestyle space, the Met Gala is the ultimate "Cultural Super Bowl." At its core, it is a celebrity-driven engine. In today's consumer landscape, celebrities remain the most potent catalysts for marketing impact and any gathering that concentrates this much star power is guaranteed to generate a massive, global media footprint. However, the true power of the Met Gala lies in its ability to foster whimsy and escapism.

A garment is more than just fabric - it gains power through its wearer. While the wearer amplifies a look’s reach, the garment itself can carry immense significance, symbolising heritage,craftsmanship, and even societal shifts. The Met Gala provides a unique stage where fashion houses and icons collaborate to create moments that go beyond mere clothing. It becomes an opportunity for brands to communicate their universe: their legacy, artistry, and vision for the future, all within a single frame.

For brands, these moments are invaluable storytelling tools, transforming a label from a transactional entity into a creator of dreams, inviting audiences to step into their world. In an era of digital saturation, providing that sense of wonder is how a brand cements its identity and values in the collective consciousness.

Consumer expectations have shifted more towards sustainability, ethics, and social positioning. How has the rise of values-driven consumption changed the way communicators craft fashion brand narratives?
The shift toward values-driven consumption has fundamentally rewired how we approach brand narratives. We are moving away from simply communicating the materiality of an object - the fabric, the cut, or the price - and focusing instead on the emotional benefits and the "why" behind the brand.

Today’s consumers prioritise emotional resonance and wellness; they don't just want to look good, but they want to feel good about what they wear. Much like the farm-to-table movement in the food industry, luxury consumers now demand to know the provenance of their purchases. When you are paying top dollar, you want to understand the source and the ethics behind the production.

At PURPLE, we advise clients that transparency is no longer a "nice-to-have" - it is a core pillar of luxury. Communicators must now craft stories that highlight the human element: the artisans, the sustainable supply chains, and the ethical footprint. We are no longer just publicising a product; we are defending a brand’s right to exist in a conscious world.

If a brand cannot articulate its contribution to social or environmental well-being, it risks becoming irrelevant. The narrative has shifted from "what is this made of" to "what does this stand for," and our job is to ensure that answer is both authentic and compelling.

With the Met Gala being such a high visibility event, brands walk a fine line between authentic expression and performative positioning. How can communicators ensure values-led storytelling withstands public scrutiny and feels credible rather than opportunistic?
The distinction between a "fantasy" brand and a "relatable" brand is crucial here. Brands that position themselves as relatable or "of the people" are naturally more prone to scrutiny if their actions feel out of touch or opportunistic. Conversely, fantasy-led brands have more license to push boundaries, provided their storytelling is rooted in deep cultural intelligence.

To ensure credibility, communicators must prioritise rigorous research. Fantasy should never be an excuse for ignorance. We have seen industry-wide cautionary tales where campaigns - such as those involving sensitive imagery or controversial legal references - backfire because they lacked cultural sensitivity. To withstand public scrutiny, a brand's presence at the Met Gala must feel like a natural extension of its long-term values, not a sudden pivot for "clout."

Credibility is built through consistency. If a brand claims to support sustainability, that could be reflected in the custom archival piece they pull out for the red carpet. If they claim to support diversity, that should be reflected in their choice of muse and the creative team behind the look. When the walk matches the talk, the storytelling feels authentic.

In PR, our role is to act as the conscience of the brand, ensuring that every creative choice is vetted against the current social climate to avoid the "performative" trap.

High fashion brands often dominate visibility at the Met Gala through celebrity partnerships, yet luxury can sometimes be perceived as elitist or disconnected from broader audiences. From a comms perspective, how can brands maintain aspiration while remaining culturally grounded, inclusive, and values-led?
It is important to acknowledge that, in the specific context of the Met Gala, the event is not intended for the masses; its very nature is exclusive and aspirational. However, "aspiration" does not have to mean "exclusion." In the modern era, brands maintain relevance by using their platform to champion inclusivity and new talent.

A significant part of this responsibility falls on the celebrity and their stylist. They act as the bridge between the brand and the public. We are seeing a beautiful trend where celebrities use the Met Gala to debut and elevate up-and-coming or emerging designers. By turning the red carpet into a launchpad for new talent rather than just relying on established heritage houses, brands and icons demonstrate that they are culturally grounded and invested in the future of the industry.

Furthermore, while the physical event is exclusive, the digital communication around it must be inclusive. Brands stay grounded by sharing the behind-the-scenes process - the hundreds of hours of labour by diverse artisans - which democratises the craft. By celebrating the humanity behind the luxury, brands can remain aspirational while proving they are values-led. It is about moving from an ivory tower mentality to a shared inspiration model.

The Met Gala generates a large amount of earned media impact within hours. What lessons can PR and communications leaders across industries take from fashion’s ability to turn cultural moments into sustained reputation and relevance?
The primary lesson is the power of the visual and social hook to spark a narrative that lasts far beyond the initial event. Fashion excels at creating thumb-stopping moments that demand immediate attention, but the real magic is in the tail of the coverage. PR leaders in other sectors should observe how fashion brands don't just drop a moment; they seed it weeks in advance and dissect it for months afterward.

Another key takeaway is the importance of cross-pollination. The Met Gala isn't just about clothes; it’s where art, film, music, and social issues collide. Other industries can learn to build relevance by stepping outside their silos and finding cultural tentpoles that allow them to participate in broader conversations.

Finally, fashion teaches us the value of "the second life" of content. A single red-carpet walk is transformed into memes, deep-dive videos, "get the look" tutorials, and various debates. To turn a moment into sustained reputation, communications leaders must create multi-layered stories. Don’t just announce a product; create a cultural artifact that invites interpretation, debate, and sharing. Relevance is maintained not by being the loudest for one hour, but by being the most interesting for the next month.

Looking ahead, what does strategic communications excellence in fashion look like, and how will cultural tentpole events continue to shape how brands build long-term trust and loyalty?
In my view, strategic communications excellence in 2026 and beyond is defined by engagement over broadcasting. The days of one-way PR announcements are over. Excellence now looks like building a community where the brand acts as a curator of culture rather than just a manufacturer of goods.

Cultural tentpole events like the Met Gala serve as the anchors of a brand’s yearly narrative, like what Art Basel does for Hong Kong. They are the moments where a brand proves its cultural currency. However, long-term trust is built in the spaces between these events. A brand that dazzles at the Met Gala but remains silent on social issues or fails on customer experience the rest of the year will lose loyalty.

In the future, I think these tentpole events will be used to demonstrate radical alignment. Every look, every guest, and every caption will be evidence that consumers use to measure a brand’s integrity and relatability. Excellence will be found in those who can balance the spectacle required for the spotlight with the substance required for the long haul.

At PURPLE, we believe that trust is the new luxury, and cultural events are the stage where that trust is either earned or lost.

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The Earned View

When the crisis is over, what will people remember?

In my previous Telum column, I wrote about Marshall McLuhan's proposition that the medium is the message and suggested that, in a crisis, the way an organisation communicates can be every bit as important as the words it chooses.

Several readers contacted me afterwards to discuss the article, but the conversations invariably drifted away from McLuhan and towards a broader question.

What do people actually remember when the crisis has passed?

It's an interesting question because, over almost five decades in communication, I've become convinced that we sometimes spend too much time concentrating on the crisis we are living through and not enough time thinking about the one people will remember.

Imagine tomorrow’s conversation

Whenever I become involved in a significant issue, I find it useful to imagine that the immediate turmoil has passed. The media has moved on, the investigations have been completed, the lawyers have packed up their files, and the board is reflecting on what happened. Standing in that future and looking back, what do you hope your customers, your employees, your shareholders, or the broader community are saying about the way your organisation handled itself?

Notice that I'm not asking what they remember you saying. I'm asking what they remember about the way you behaved and how that made them feel.

I've always found that to be a far more revealing conversation, because it shifts the focus away from communication as an exercise in drafting statements and back to communication as an exercise in understanding people.

One of the fascinating things about crises is that the facts rarely remain with us in the way we imagine they will. Ask someone about a major issue they experienced several years ago and they may struggle to remember the chronology, the official statements, or the sequence of events that dominated the headlines at the time.

What they are much more likely to remember is whether they felt they had been treated honestly, fairly, and with respect. They remember whether they believed the organisation understood what they were going through and whether, at a time when trust mattered most, it acted in a way that deserved that trust.

Perhaps that's why I have never been entirely comfortable with the suggestion that crisis communication is primarily about controlling the narrative. Narratives have always had a habit of taking on a life of their own. Journalists contribute to them, commentators contribute to them, social media certainly contributes to them, and now artificial intelligence is adding another layer altogether.

The one thing an organisation can genuinely control is its own behaviour, and communication is one of the most visible expressions of that behaviour.

Before it’s a media issue, it’s a human one

Many years ago, I found myself advising a contractor after an employee claimed he had been accidentally exposed to asbestos. Before long the unions were involved, the regulator was involved, and the media had arrived. As often happens, the discussion quickly became a contest over who could express the greatest level of outrage. Everyone had a position to defend and everyone had an opinion about what should happen next.

What struck me then, and has stayed with me ever since, was that the two people whose lives had been turned upside down had almost disappeared from the discussion. One was the employee, who was understandably worried about his health and his future. The other was the business owner, who knew the incident had happened on his watch and understood that he would face the legal consequences.

I asked everyone else to step back. The lawyers stopped talking, and the two men simply sat down together. They spoke honestly about what had happened, what it meant for each of them and what needed to happen next. The employee received appropriate compensation, the employer accepted the penalties that followed and, perhaps more importantly, they walked away respecting each other, not as victim and irresponsible perpetrator, but as two decent people caught up in an unfortunate situation who cared enough to have an honest conversation.

Looking back, I have little doubt that meeting did more to shape the reputations of everyone involved than anything that was written or said publicly in the weeks that followed. Before it became a legal issue, a regulatory issue, and a media issue, it was a human issue, and once the human dimension was recognised, many of the communication decisions became much clearer.

That experience reinforced something I have always believed about crisis communication: People first. Reputation second. Dollars last.

It has never been a slogan or a neat piece of alliteration. It is simply an acknowledgement that organisations build or diminish their reputations through the way they treat people, particularly when those people are most vulnerable.

See it through their eyes

Take a different, hypothetical example. Imagine a national supermarket discovers that one of its own products may have been contaminated. Within minutes, the executive team is discussing regulators, product recalls, legal obligations, and the inevitable media interest. Every one of those discussions is necessary. But suppose someone asks a different question. If I had just fed this product to my family, what would I want to hear from this organisation over the next hour?

The discussion immediately changes because the communication is no longer being viewed through the eyes of the organisation. It is being viewed through the eyes of the customer. The facts have not changed, but the perspective has, and with it the quality of the communication.

The same principle applies whether the issue involves a cyber-attack, allegations against a senior executive, or a telecommunications outage. People affected by those events are rarely sitting at home analysing legal advice or corporate process. They want to know whether somebody understands why they are worried, whether somebody is taking responsibility, and whether somebody is doing everything reasonably possible to make things right.

Those are fundamentally human questions, and they deserve essentially human answers.

Your reputation is the experience people remember

Communication professionals devote a great deal of time to choosing the right words, and rightly so. Words matter. Accuracy matters. Timing matters. The medium, as I argued in my last column, matters enormously. But all of those things are ultimately in the service of something much bigger.

They help shape the experience people have with an organisation at a time when that experience will influence its reputation long after the crisis itself has faded from memory.

So, before your next crisis meeting begins, try standing in the future and looking back. Ask yourself how your decisions made people feel.

In my experience, the answer to that question will usually tell you far more about the communication strategy you should adopt than the first draft of any media statement ever could.

Douglas Wright is Chief Executive Officer of Wrights, providing strategic counsel to boards and executives navigating complex reputational, stakeholder, governance and public policy challenges.

With more than four decades experience, he has advised leading corporations, industry bodies, government agencies and not-for-profit organisations across Australia and internationally. Prior to establishing Wrights, he founded and led Ogilvy PR Australia.

Douglas is Deputy Chair and a Fellow of Communication and Public Relations Australia (CPRA), a Chartered Public Relations Practitioner (UK), a Fellow of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and a Certified Practising Marketer.

He combines commercial judgement, strategic insight and an ability to shape outcomes in complex environments.

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